STUDENT URINE-TESTING CHALLENGED

In the first legal action of its kind in Washington. the ACLU-WA in December
filed a lawsuit on behalf of two sets of parents of Wahkiakum High School
students challenging Wahkiakum School District’s recently adopted policy of
suspicionless urine testing for students who participate in extracurricular
athletic activities. The lawsuit is the first case to challenge a student
urine-testing program in Washington.

“Forcing students to submit their urine to officials is a degrading practice
that treats all student athletes as suspects. The district’s policy is an
effort to make a symbolic statement about drugs at the expense of students
who simply want to be on sports teams,” said ACLU-WA Legal Program Director
Julya Hampton.

“We object to the urine-testing policy as an unwarranted invasion of
privacy. We want school to teach our children to think critically, not to
police them,” said Hans York, a deputy sheriff and plaintiff in the suit.
Hans and Katherine York are parents of a senior who is in the National Honor
Society and of a ninth-grader. Sharon and Paul Schneider, parents of a
ninth-grader, also are plaintiffs in the legal action. Paul Schneider is a
medical doctor who has. served as a Medical Review Officer in a drug
rehabilitation context.

In the fall of 1999 Ihe Wahkiakum School Board in southwest Washington
adopted a policy providing that all students who take part in
extracurricular athletic activities be subjected to urine testing without
suspicion. The policy was adopted without any convincing evidence that there
is a significant problem among students with use of illegal drugs or that
disciplinary problems have increased as a result of student drug use.
Government reports show that teen drug use is on the decline nationally.

The urine collection procedure substantially invades personal privacy.
Students are required to shed all extraneous clothing and to urinate in
close proximity to an official. A student who is unable to urinate without a
medical reason will be deemed to be a drug user and will be barred from all
extracurricular athletics.

The lawsuit contends that the policy of suspicionless testing violates the
“privacy clause” of the Washington Constitution (Article I. Section 7),
which provides that “No person shall be disturbed in his private affairs, or
his home invaded, without authority of law.” In Kuehn v. Renton School
District, in an ACLU-WA case, the Washington Supreme Court in 1985 ruled
that ii is unconstitutional for public schools to search a student without
individualized suspicion that he or she is breaking a law or school rule. In
that case, officials at Hazen High School in Renton had sought to search a
student’s luggage prior to a school band trip.

Experts in the fields of medicine and social science say that policies like
Wahkiakum’s are the wrong approach to preventing drug use. In a 1996
position statement opposing suspicionless drug testing, the American Academy
of Pediatrics said that “students and student athletes should not be singled
out for involuntary screening for drugs,” citing the importance of
confidentiality and autonomy for adolescents, and lack of accuracy in
detecting certain drugs.

Cooperating attorneys Anuj Desai and Catherine Maxson of Davis Wright
Tremaine are handling the case for the ACLU-WA.